Sunday, June 15, 2008

Mario Melodies: Interplay part.1

In order to describe how a game is played over time, one must take into account the range of effects the players actions have on the characters, enemies, and the environment. Previously on Critical-Gaming, we've described game mechanics as being concrete versus abstract, and existing in one of three levels: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary mechanics are a limited set of mechanics that make up the core of the player's interactivity and the core feeling/action of a game. Secondary mechanics are typically designed to support the primary mechanic by giving it more variation and rounding out the feel of a game. Tertiary mechanics are actions that can only be executed in limited contextual situations that depend on an outside source (ex. an enemy).

In real life, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. I translate this as every action is a part of a push-pull system. Because actions are so intricately and intimately interconnected, the effects of a single action can cause a domino effect of cascading dynamic reactions. Such is the richness of life. Like in life, game mechanics that exist within a game world that are part of a push-pull system yield richer, more versatile, deeper gameplay experiences. This is the essence of interplay.

Interplay is the back and forth encouragement of player mechanics between any two elements in a game. Put simply, interplay is where actions and elements in a game aren't means to an end, but fluid opportunities that invite the player to play around with the changing situation.

The easiest way to think of interplay is offensively/defensively or in counters. Consider two elements of a hypothetical action/fighting game. The first element is the player's character, and the second is an enemy. If an enemy can attack you, does this attack/enemy have a way to be countered? What happens when you counter the enemie's move? Does the enemy die, does it reset itself, or does the situation change? If the situation changes, is the enemy still a threat? If so, can you counter the new threat? And the cycle repeats.

Once you have run out of counters between the two elements you're examining, it's easy to map out which mechanics were used at each level, what kind of mechanics were used, and what additional elements were involved in the situation. Only with all of this information can the interplay of two elements be accurately described. The greater the level of interplay involving higher (more primary) mechanics and level elements, the deeper and more dynamic a game is.

Now for some examples.

Donkey Kong Jungle Beat

All the bosses in this game are designed with a well balanced amount of interplay that allows the player to constantly flow with the action instead of waiting around for weak spots to reveal themselves.

Even in this relatively simple boss Torch Tusk, players can utilize throwing explosive pineapples offensively to counter the boss attacks of fireball projectiles and lasers. When Torch Tusk is taking in air to shoot the fireballs, players can throw a pineapple so that it gets jammed inside of its tusk. Players can also stop the laser by hitting Torch Tusk with a pineapple while its discharging the beam. At the same time, the boss can counter the player's only offensive option by intercepting an incoming pineapple, letting the small flame walls detonate the planted pineapples, or blasting them with the laser beam.

This kind of offensive interplay keeps the momentum high because the player always has something they can do to gain an advantage. Because the player's only offensive option is using the pineapples that are located at the exposed top and bottom platforms, the player is more likely to move around the field platforming in a variety of ways.

Super Mario Galaxy

In this battle with the boss Bouldergeist, Mario can't attack the boss directly. In order to do damage, Mario must blast away the rocky exterior using Bomb Boos. Once the weak spot is revealed, more Bomb Boo will finish Bouldergeist off.

Bouldergeist attacks Mario with punches, shockwave rock walls, hand slams, and projectiles rocks (some of which contain Bomb Boos). Mario can avoid all of these attacks by maneuvering, but he can only directly counter the projectile rocks with his spin attack or by shooting star bits at them. From this point, the rocks that contain Bomb Boo's are the Bouldergeist's second level counter. Even if Mario avoids the rocks, the Bomb Boos will then seek out Mario and explode on contact. These Boos, like most Boos, cannot be hurt with normal jumps. With these guys, Mario must counter them with a spin attack. This is the 3rd level of interplay.

By spin attacking a Bomb Boo, Mario can swing the ghosts around by their tongue for an explosive attack. Attacking in this way is the only way for Mario to damage Bouldergeist's main body to expose his weak spot. To counter Mario closing in for the attack, Bouldergeist's attacks take on a secondary function. The hands and rock walls in this case also function as shields protecting the main body. Now, when jumping may not have been necessary to dodge the incoming attacks, it may indeed be necessary to avoid hitting Bouldergeist's defensive moves. This is the fourth level of interplay.

The final level comes from an ability built into the Bomb Boos themselves. As Mario swings them around by their tongues, the Bomb Boos will slowly retract their tongues bringing their explosive bodies closer and closer to Mario. This final defensive counter dynamically shortens the swinging radius around Mario. The Boss knows this, and when he has nothing else to defend himself, his final move is simply backing up to increase the distance and the swinging time between him and Mario. This fifth level of interplay creates an exciting battle of spacing and timing. Also, the length of the Boo's tongues make a perfect timer that fits snugly within the tenet "form fits function."

Interplay doesn't have to reach any particular level in order to be interesting, useful, and well designed/integrated with the rest of the game. Just having multiple one step interplay elements can build exciting and rich gameplay experiences.

Viewtiful Joe's enemies and bosses are action packed because of the high amount of interplay in their design. Though the level of interplay doesn't typically go past 2, the mechanics involved in the interplay are all highly interconnected. A single attack from a boss or enemy has at least one obvious counter. At any time, players can use their special fx powers to speed up time, slow it down, or zoom in the camera to adjust the difficulty of executing the counter in real time. In other words, if an attack is too fast for a player, they can simply slow down time to make things easier. But as the enemies and attacks begin to layer together, things get more complicated. All the while, the energy that Joe needs to stay powered up drains away. When Joe is all out of energy, he not only losses his super powers like his fx powers and his double jump, but he takes more damage as an "ordinary joe." During the most exciting battles, players are fully engaged in the push-pull inter-gameplay.

Some examples of interplay can branch from a single point. Take Squirtle's withdraw attack from Super Smash Brothers Brawl. With this move, Squirtle tucks himself into his shell and slides forward. While inside his shell, Squirtle cannot take damage. Also, the moving shell can hit objects and opponents for a weak attack. With these two properties, this move could have been unbalanced because of its offensive and defensive abilities. Fortunately, counters were built into this move that comply with form fits function. Opponents can strike the shell to counter its trajectory. Though Squirtle won't take damage, he will slide in the direction of the attack according to the strength of the attack used. So it's possible to smash the shell off the stage so that Squirtle has to extend himself just to recover back to the stage. Opponents can also counter the move by jumping on top of the shell Super Mario style. When this happens, Squirtle is flipped on his back helpless as he struggles to turn himself back over. If all the moves, especially the stronger ones, had this much interplay, Brawl would be a much better game.

If an individual game action or element is analogous to a musical note, then interplay is how the range and variety of notes are created in a videogame. Long held notes, short notes, syncopation, grace notes, and runs up and down a scale are analogous to game mechanics like charging a bast in Megaman, small jumps in Mario Bros., countering in Ninja Gaiden, angling an up-B recovery move in Smash Brothers, or riding down an icy mount in Donkey Kong Jungle Beat. Interplay is how the music of a game can move beyond simply recognizing the situations to use a mechanic, executing the mechanic, and moving on.

Tomorrow, I'll go into detail about the interplay in Super Mario Bros. Bricks. Goomba. Koopa... the genius of these seemingly simple elements will be revealed. Stay tuned.

No comments:

Updated Critical-Glossary

All +All -

Critical-Glossary

+-
Alphabetical

+-
abstract mechanic

Some gameplay mechanics are completely artificial, meaning they do not make logical sense based on the form of the game. When such mechanics are privileged within a game's design, we tend to label these games as being "arcade" like. I describe these gameplay mechanics as being abstract.

It is a design innovation that applies to games that are played in real time. By taking the progression of real time and breaking it down in specific contextual ways, a new level of game design can be reached. This is the essence of asynchronous time, or async.

In music, Counterpoint is the writing of musical lines that sound different on their own, but harmonize when played together. How the melody of a song interacts with the other lines is the focus of Counterpoint.

Counterpoint, in gaming, is a word for the way gameplay develops past optimization by layering interactive elements into a single gameplay experience. When each layer influcences, interacts, and enhances the functions/gameplay of each other layer the gameplay emerges into a medium of expression that reflects the individuality of a player and the dynamics that reflect the complexity of the world we live in.

A measure of how the changes in the method of input are paralleled with the action in the game according to the form of the mechanic. If you quickly press the green button on your controller, does the game quickly press the button on the screen? If you hold the button on your controller, is the button on the screen held down as well?

An measure of how the game world responds to the action. According to the form of the game world and the mechanic, does the world react realistically? What is the extent of the properties of the mechanic? Are the reactions to the mechanic special cases or can the resulting actions continue to effect the game world?

Like Marxist criticism, the most successful Feminist critique of a game involves analyzing how the range of player functions that affect female characters directly or indirectly reveal the operations of patriarchy. When the player is encouraged or forced to play in a way that depicts men as strong, rational, protective and women as weak, emotional, submissive, and nurturing, then the game can be said to support and reinforce patriarchal genders roles and ideologies. Patriarchal values work to oppress women, and all feminist theory and criticism works to promote women‘s equality. A Feminist analysis can become more complex when finding examples of actions toward women if a game doesn’t feature any women or the game allows for limited interaction with women. Writing essays about such games often leads to finding evidence by absence. In other words, a Feminist critic’s central piece of evidence may be what can’t be done to women instead of what can.

+-
flow

How a game accelerates or creates forward momentum. This factor of gameplay isn't necessarily about speed. More specifically, it looks at how a game's interactions feed back into the player's options/experience like a snowball rolling down hill.

+-
folded level design

Level design that resuses a space with the second use containing an extra layer to the gameplay that builds on the knowledge and experiences established on the first layer.

Form fits function is a powerful game design principle that has powered many of Nintendo's greatest games. Using familiar visuals, games can use their form to communicate to the player. If there is a ball resting on a tee and the player avatar has a golf club in their hands, they better be able to swing the club and hit the ball. Otherwise, why put such things in front of the player in the first place? Keeping the form true to the functions and limits of a game creates the cleanest most easily enjoyable experiences.

+-
function creates form

When a game's mechanics inspire, shape, and define the creation of ancillary parts of a game. ie. story, setting, premise, characters, music, audio

Interplay is the back and forth encouragement of player mechanics between any two elements in a game. Put simply, interplay is where actions and elements in a game aren't means to an end, but fluid opportunities that invite the player to play around with the changing situation.

A measure of the degree to which input method matches the form of the game. If there's a green button on the screen, and a green button on your game controller, the form of the game is liked to the input of pressing the green button on the controller.

Like Psychoanalytic criticism, Marxist criticism can seemingly critique a game by looking solely at a its fiction. However, both of these critical modes, in relation to videogames, achieve a deeper, more profound level of analysis when the elements of interactivity between the game and player are taken into consideration. Many Marxist critics of literature believe that film, literature, art, music, and other forms of entertainment such as videogames are the primary bearers of cultural ideologies. While we’re being entertaining by these medias, our defenses are lowered making us all the more susceptible to ideological programming. A Marxist critic of videogames looks for how a game supports or condems capitalist, imperialist, or classist values. Perhaps the best and most obvious place to look toward in games is the role and function of money. Some games represent money with actual U.S. dollars or some other form of real world currency. Others use fictional currency from bell, to gil, to star bits, or even points. What the player can purchase, how these items or services function, and how the money circulates within the game world all become important areas of analysis.

"New Classical criticism focuses on identifying a game's primary function/action that sums up all of the player's actions, functions, and abilities into a single expression. This expression can be thought of as the interpretation of the game or what the gamer is actually doing when he/she plays. Sometimes the primary function can be encapsulated in a single word. For example, the primary function of the Super Mario platforming series is "jump". After the primary function is identified, the New Classical critic then looks at a game's formal elements to analyze how they promote the primary function. The formal elements include Sound, Music, Art style, Story, Graphics, level design, enemies, etc. Because the New Classical critic privileges interactivity over passivity (especially when focused into a limited number of rules and actions), such a critic is only concerned with how these elements shape the gameplay experience, and assumes that any formal element in a game is only meaningful when it supports the primary function and exists in a lower state of priority to that function. In other words, elements like story can't be more stressed and more important to a game than the gameplay. Even if a game is designed according to the conventions and assumptions of Western game design, it can still be critiqued in the Classical mode."

A type of multi-fold level design where the creases and layers are so flexible and/or dynamic that considering the possibilities within a single level are interconnected and complex. Considering the shape created from a multi-fold level is similar to observing an origami figure.

For those who aren’t careful, a Psychoanalytic critique of a game appears to only be concerned with the fiction of a game and the relationship of the characters. Unless the game is Psychonauts, most games seem to have little to nothing to do with the human psyche. Neglecting how the game fiction and the gameplay (or game rules) come together to create the Psychological work in a game is a common pitfall. Another easy pitfall is to get wrapped up in Psychoanalyzing the developers of the game, or what may be infinitely more embarrassing, accidentally analyzing one’s own psychological state while trying to pass it off as an analysis of the game. Though it is true that the fiction of a game is an important part of any Psychoanalytic analysis, the gameplay is where the most profound sources of material because the interactivity of the game can influence and transform the player in more powerfully subtle ways than a passive medium.

The set of mechanics that do not make up the set of primary mechanics. These mechanics usually aid and help shape the primary mechanic.

+-
sections (sub-sections)

All games can be broken down into sub-sections or sections. Whether a game is broken down by rooms, loading sections, cut scenes, stages, levels, rounds, or turns, if a game has a mechanic that is repeated, then it can be divided into sections.

Structures are probably the most recognizable feature of videogames. Because structures create the foundation for the game rules and player to learn these rules, analyzing structure develops a clearer insight into how a game works at its core. We're all familiar with the structures of genre. Any gamer can instantly recognize a first person shooter like Halo from a puzzle game like Tetris. Each gaming genre has a certain look to it that is the result of the gameplay structures. Like with any genre, the degree to which the conventions are followed or deviated from varies greatly from game to game. Recognizing a game's structure is an acute way of talking about how a game works in or outside of its genre.

+-
suspension

In counterpoint, when a game element or game idea is offset form the established pattern of game ideas to create scenarios where the element/idea can carry over and influence other game ideas.

...about Critical-Gaming

We have come to a point where how we talk about video games is insufficient in expressing how we feel and think about them. With each year comes increasingly complex games, yet we are still, for the most part, writing and talking about games on a shallow consumer level.

It is time to start thinking and writing critically about games. However, before we can do this, we must approach gaming from a critical mode or mindset. To do this, we must first understand of how the different parts of a game work together (game design). Unfortunately, many of the who have experience in this area spend their time making video games. Beyond that, the body of knowledge that does exist is scattered at best. For this reason, it is hard for a thorough understanding of game design and critique to become widespread.

I have started this blog in efforts to inform both gamers and non-gamers of the complexities of gaming and how it compares to any other art form (music, literature, movies). Using literary critical theory and music theory as a starting point, I have developed a comprehensive set of critical modes for video game critique. By writing in these critical modes, and by critiquing other video game reviews, I hope to raise our understanding and expectations of video game journalism, critique, and even video games themselves.

We already have a loose idea of what it means to be a core gamer. A casual gamer. And a hardcore gamer. I hope with the right mindset, we can become critical-gamers, who don't shun our fellow gamers for thinking deeply about games but embrace the change we wish to see in the world.